direction and choreography
Akram Khan

visual direction, set design and costumes
Manal AlDowayan

dancers
Pallavi Anand,
Laura Bufano,
Ching-Ying Chien,
Shreya Kannan,
Azusa Seyama Prioville,
Nikita Rao,
Divya Ravi,
Joy Alpuerto Ritter,
Rohini Shetty,
Elpida Skourou,
Mei Fei Soo

narrative concept
Manal AlDowayan, Akram Khan

soundscape composition and design
Aditya Prakash

sound design
Gareth Fry

lighting design
Zeynep Kepekli

creative collaborator and coach
Mavin Khoo

dramaturg
Blue Pieta

rehearsal directors
Charlotte Pook, Angela Towler, Chris Tudor

producing director
Farooq Chaudhry

executive director
Isabel Tamen

production manager
Michael Cunningham

production of visual direction
Carla Giachello

company manager
Emma Cameron

touring production manager
Anthony Forrester
Michael Cunningham

technical stage manager
Harry Abbott

sound engineer
Enrico Aurigemma
Matt Armstrong

lighting supervisor
Stephane Dejours

wardrobe supervisor
Anne-Marie Bigby

costume maker
Peggy Housset

set builder
Tin Shed Scenery

commissioned by
Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla

primary co-production partner
Bagri Foundation

commissioned by
Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla

with the support of
Bagri Foundation

supported by
Arts Council England

The Matriarch, the elder and leader of the gathering returns for one night of exchange. She understands the power of all its elements. Alongside two sisters - one who evokes and one who serves as a ritualistic vessel - they lead the tribe to summon their ancestor spirit from the Knowledge Rock. She symbolises the past, the ruins and the memory of generations that have lived through the cyclic flaws of humankind. She returns to her tribe for one night of exchange. This night is a moment to reflect on their collective past. Through the memory of their history and a colonised past, the tribe finds space to heal, to transcend as they surrender to the ritual of life and death. In this reconnection, there is release. And only then does the ancestral spirit return to rest, until another year.

If time is like a river, then the clock is nothing more than a mechanical pretender. So let us welcome this feeling of suspension that comes over me as I stand in the middle of the magnificent vastness of AlUla, as an opportunity to remind ourselves that, perhaps, along the course of this river of time, we have lost our way. Let us then try to find new ways – or perhaps rediscover old ways – to start moving again, alone and together, so that we do not become mere mechanical imitations of human beings.
I have always felt that the way we think about the future carries with it a past. In the history of human civilisation, every culture has developed its own idea of the future. So, as I listen, almost overwhelmed by the immensity of this epic desert that is AlUla, I feel the desire to bring to light the many cultures that have passed through these places. I can only imagine the cacophony of voices, the multitude of languages, the plurality of movements and the variety of scents that have passed through here, contributing to making this space unique.
I want to explore a movement traversed by the voices of many dancers, to celebrate the power of nature that inhabits this environment and, at the same time, recognise the maternal qualities of our ever-changing civilisations, which have shaped the past and will continue to shape our future.